What I’m Loving Wednesday 6.27.12

1. Snacks. I love love love snacks. I’d rather snack all day than consume meals. These kale chips by Rhythm Superfoods that my grandparents sent me were delicious.

The almond & apricot KIND bar was equally delicious.

2. This “fresh cupcakes” scented air freshener from Bath & Body Works.  Do you understand how wonderful it is to get in your car and smell cupcakes?! As a bonus, it sparkles in the sunshine. You need to embrace your inner princess and buy one.

3. This lotion from Bath & Body Works that I wear almost every day. People love it. Boys especially. (Not a joke.) It’s magical.

Scent description: a seductive blend of dark berries with a kiss of vanilla to unleash your most primal passions. Key fragrance notes: sensual incense, Mirabelle plum, and night musk

4. I must wear headbands when I exercise. I have silly thick hair and both a headband and ponytail holder are necessary to control the mane. I found these headbands in the girls’ section of Target and immediately snatched them up. Obsessed.

Dear God, please don’t let neons ever go out of style.

5. This e-card.

6. So true!

7. CHARLESTON YOU ARE SO STINKING BEAUTIFUL!!!

(That was taken with my cell phone. Yup. This city is that pretty.)

What I’m Loving Wednesday

1. Did you know if you soak gummy bears in rum, you get rummy bears?! I’m way too excited about this.

Imagine all the possibilities: gummy bears, worms, sharks! Trader Joe’s sells gummy penguins and I plan soaking those in some vodka this Summer.

2. Chuckles.

3. On Friday Amanda and I found out that we won the Bacardi Photo Contest!! In case you missed it, here’s the pic we entered, titled “Bacardi Babies.”

We won a 3-night stay at a house on IOP. We’re so excited to plan a fun girls weekend. Thanks to those of you who voted!

4. We also won tickets to go to the Bacardi Classic event but gave them to my friend Melissa who also entered the contest. She’s an awesome gal and totally deserved them. Before she left, she sent me this tweet:

That made me so proud. I hope the Chick-fil-A helped soak up all the Bacardi. ;)

5. This ice cream is the reason why I’m going to work out extensively this Summer. This is a combination of 2 of the best ice cream flavors. Damn you, Breyer’s. You are good.

6. The intern left me this note on my second monitor at work.

Can anyone honestly tell me they don’t like that song?

7. I love Danielle for this tweet, reminding us to be so grateful for everything we have.

Look at everything around you right now. Feel blessed.

Don’t forget to enter the very yummy Protein Bakery giveaway!

What I’m Loving Wednesday

1. These pictures I took of King Street and the Arthur Ravenel bridge. How pretty is my city?

Those were taken on my phone!

2. I found a picture of baby Boding in his car!! Look at the little China man!

3. Albino strawberries!! They’re a cross between a pineapple and a strawberry and appropriately named pineberries.

Check out this article for more information.

4. Love a good pie chart. Especially this one:

5. Drinking milk in a wine glass feels fancy. Especially for breakfast!

6. I finally tried the chocolate chip cookie from Chick-fil-A. It’s good, but not as good as I had hoped. It’s huge but more on the crispy side. This girl strongly prefers a soft, chewy cookie. I’ll be sticking with the IceDream cones.

7. The Roti Rolls truck rolled down the street near my work. My coworker Kat, who was just as ecstatic as I was, went with me for lunch. I had the pickled shrimp roti roll. It was so fresh! I wonder if they’d cater my birthday party.

Seriously, you guys need to follow that truck.

xo!

Monday Can Be A Fun Day

Mid-morning while at work, I got a call that my glasses were in! I was so excited I almost took an early lunch get them. I’m glad I waited…Rewind to about a month ago: I found out that one of my readers, Amanda, also works at Blackbaud. She e-mailed me because she, too, had purchased the Pearle Vision coupon. We tried to coordinate our schedules to pick out glasses together, but that didn’t work. Luckily our schedules matched up today! I got a text from her saying her glasses were ready and she asked if I wanted to ride with her to pick them up. Blogger meet-up and new glasses? YAY! Her next text was “Pick you up at the front door! Valet service at Blackbaud!”

And then I jumped in the car with a stranger.

An awesome stranger! Amanda is so fun and sweet and I was glad to meet her. :)

That afternoon, my coworker and I planned a meeting to review my first 3 months of work. Her plan was to have an off-site meeting...at Menchie’s! Elizabeth got a bowl of cake batter froyo with cinnamon toast crunch cereal, and I got a bowl of cake batter and brownie batter froyo.

And here are the glasses!

After work, I went to the gym even though I felt like I had been sweating enough to skip it. It was over 100* here today. Ahh. You see why frozen yogurt was necessary? The gym was sort of miserable, but the Pandora app got me through it. I may or may not have made a couple moves on Words With Friends during my interval run…the walking part, of course.

For dinner, I made Jenna’s Roasted Beet & Goat Cheese Quinoa. Oh, hello heavenly beets and goat cheese.

This was my first time cooking quinoa, which is a shame because it’s a powerhouse food. Quinoa is fluffy, slightly crunchy, and nutty. It is high in protein and a good source of magnesium, manganese and iron. Although most people consider it to be a grain, it is actually a relative of leafy green vegetables.
Don’t forget how wonderful beets are. Check out these beet balls I saw in Whole Foods on Sunday. Wtc are beet balls? Odd, to say the least.

Pizza, Gelato, and Packing for Destin!

Three day weekends really freak me out. I felt so off today! Anyone else out there keep forgetting it’s actually Tuesday?

My friend Rob is moving to NYC in a couple weeks – sad! We went to our last work lunch today. We went to Vespa Pizza last time, so today we tried the other pizza place on Daniel Island: Orlando’s Pizza. Orlando’s brick oven pizza uses dough and sauces that are made daily and the freshness is evident in its taste. The crust was perfectly thin, with a fair amount of cheese, and lots of sauce. To me, this was the perfect slice of pizza, and for only $2.50. I will be back a thousand times.

I regretted not getting two slices!

After the salty came the sweet. We walked to Et Cetera, a small gourmet food shop. They had gelato from Paolo’s Gelato, which is located downtown on John St. I ordered the Bacio (chocolate and hazelnut) which is totally weird for me; I don’t like chocolate based ice cream. This little sucker cost $4 pre tax. What? My pizza was less than this ball of ice cream. Don’t be fooled by this pic – it may look like a full cone but it’s just a blob on the top. I ended up throwing out the cone because there was no gelato in it. Boo.

After work, I went to the gym for some cardio. It was 93* outside and it felt the same in the gym. I sweated like never before. I ran a little over 3.5 miles (1 regular mile and 2.5 miles of interval sprints) then headed over to Whole Foods to pick up my 7th CSA box. Goodies!!

I quickly showered and got ready because Mariah, Lucy, and I had plans to go to Mustard Seed for dinner. We shared an appetizer of sesame crusted tuna with wasabi ginger mayo and sweet soy sauce. We tore that right up!

I was craving vegetables like never before, so I ordered the stir-fried vegetables with brown rice and added chicken. This did not disappoint – I think it included every vegetable known to man.

It should be my bed time, but I have work to do. I’m about go to nuts with these markers – stay tuned for the fancy tank tops I’m making for our drive to Destin tomorrow.

Speaking of Destin, I thought it would be fun for Margaret and I to complete a photo challenge on the way there…kind of like a scavenger hunt with our cameras. I am trying to think of funny things we need to take pictures with. So far I’ve come up with the following:

1. A picture of SC, GA, and FL welcome signs
2. A picture of us with a truck driver
3. A picture of a “foreign” Chick-fil-A
4. A picture of Margaret pumping gas with her beef jerky and Mt. Dew – her car ride requirements
5. A picture of somebody else pumping our gas (Thanks for that one, Rob!)
6. A picture of us wearing our horribly ugly sunglasses/headbands…just you wait

Please help us come up with more ideas! I will be receiving all your comments while we’re in the car, so I can just keep updating our list! THANKS!!!

XO!

Feeling Kind of (Chest) Nutty!

First things first, we need a laugh. Remember yesterday when I said that Amanda and I went downtown to take pictures for her friend? While I was snapping shots of Longitude Lane, Amanda took a picture of me. Not only does this picture make me chuckle because I look like a midget, but PLEASE focus your eyes on the lady on the street. 

#1 – What is her face?

#2 – Her breasts are touching her belly button. Not okay. If you know this woman, tell her to buy a bra. Moving along…

After dinner last night, my new roommate Lucy asked if I wanted to roast chestnuts. I immediately thought of the Christmas song that goes, “Chestnuts roasting on an open fire…” but giggled because we had to use the oven. I had seen chestnuts being roasted over an open fire (literally) in Rome, but never bought any so I was excited to try them. Before roasting, Lucy told me that you have to cut an x into the shell. She showed me how to do a few, then I gave it a go. We scored the whole bag of nuts and roasted them at 400*.. Twenty minutes later, the shells had peeled open and the actual nut was revealed. Aren’t they precious? They were ridiculously hot, but I couldn’t resist peeling one open right away. The first thing I noticed was that they were very starchy! I did some research later and found some interesting facts on chestnuts:

• Chestnuts can be eaten raw, but can also be roasted, boiled, candied, steamed, or grilled.
  
• The texture is similar to that of a potato with a sweet and nutty flavor.
  
• Chestnuts can be dried and milled into flour.
  
• Chestnuts contain no cholesterol, and very little fat (mostly unsaturated) and no gluten.
  
• They are the only “nuts” that contain Vitamin C; 100g contains about 65% of your daily requirement.

Roasting chestnuts was not only festive, but healthy! My mind is already brewing with thoughts of grinding up some chestnut butter…Has anyone done this? What is your favorite nut to roast or make nut butter with?

Help Me and I'll Help You!

Okay people, listen up. I have a baby and I don't know what to do with him. There's a nifty guide mode, and of course the auto mode works great too, but I want to know more. I love new toys - but even more so I love learning about all of their features. I spent an obnoxious amount of time learning every single thing my Blackberry Bold was capable of doing and now consider myself a Blackberry Goddess. I wanna be a Nikon Goddess!! So, I'm turning to my readers. If any of you know any sites with DSLR guides, tips, or how-tos, I would greatly appreciate you recommending them!


In return, I have a little giveaway. You do not have to send me a site to participate in the giveaway, but I would definitely appreciate if you have one.


A couple weeks ago, Annelies from Attune Foods offered to send me some more Uncle Sam cereal. I had previously reviewed the Uncle Sam Original flavor, but now that they have three new flavors, I was going to get to try those too! 

 

First, I tried the Wild Strawberry. This one is lightly sweet and full of dried strawberries. I was really impressed with the amount of strawberries in the cereal. The Strawberry flavor packs the most fiber of the three - 8 grams in a 3/4 cup serving. 

My second flavor was the Honey Almond. This one is so crunchy! It would be great on top of Greek yogurt. It's not as sweet as I was expecting and has a very natural taste.

Finally, I tried the Great Multi-Grains. I expected this flavor to be bland, but it is actually my favorite! I swear it tasted like it contained cinnamon, but according to the ingredients it doesn't! The only thing I may have been tasting that was different from the other two was oat flakes. 

Would you like to try a box of Uncle Sam cereal? Leave me a comment telling me which flavor you'd like to try the most and you just may win a box! For nutritional information on these products, please check out the Uncle Sam site. There are also some great recipes - one of which is mine! :) Giveaway will end at noon on Friday, October 29th, when I will randomly choose a winner. Good luck!